Rotary engine.



No. 748,196. PATENTED DEG. 29,1903.

'L. J. J. B LE BOND.

ROTARY ENGINE;

APPLIOA'IION FILED JUNE 13.1902.

H0 MODEL. 7 SHEETSSHBET 1.

PATENTED DEC. 29, 1903.

L. J. J. B. LE om). ROTARY ENGINE. APPLIQATION IILIQD JUNE 13 1902.

7 SHBETS-BHEET 2.

. no nonhn.

BATENTED D301 29 1903. I. J. BZ L'EROND.

110mm ENGINE.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 13, 1902.

7 HEETS-SHEET 4,

H0 MOD N am \N PATENTED DEC. 29. 1903.

L. J. J. B. LB BOND.

ROTARY ENGINE.

APPLICATION FILED mm 1a. 1902.

7 sums-sum 5.

. N0 MODEL.

" fzzvenlor Alfornqy.

PATENTED DEC. 29, 1903. L. J. J. B. LE ROND.

ROTARY ENGINE.

APPLICATION FILED JUNE 13. 1902.

7 SHEETS-SHEET 7.

H0 MODEL.

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UNITED STATES Patented December 29, 1903.

PATENT OFFICE.

ROTARY ENGINE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent fi'o. 748,196, datedDecember 29, 1903.

Application filed June 18, 1902.

To OZZZ whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, LOUIS J ULES J BAN-BAP- TISTE LE ROND, a citizen ofthe Republic of France, residing at Paris, in the Republic of France,haveinvented a new and useful Improvement in or Relating to RotaryEngines or Pumps, which invention is fully set forth in the followingspecification.

The-present invention relates to that class of rotary engines or pumpsdescribed in my prior patent, No. 646,151, of March 27, 1900, the motorbeing so constructed that it can be reversed, while several other advantages are also obtained by the new construction.

Supposing that in a rotary engine of my system having chambers dividedinto several working compartments two of these chambers are arranged onenext to the other, the motive fluid in the compartments of one chamberbeing under high pressure while the compartments ofthe other chamber areunder low pressure, it will be easily understood that by combining theopenings of the high-pressure compartments with the adjacentlow-pressure compartments in different ways it will be possible toreverse the direction of rotation. A suitable arrangement for carryingout the different combinations being provided, the engine will rotate inone direction or the other, according as the motive fluid passes fromthe high-pressure compartment to one or the other of two low-pressurecompartments with which it may be put into communication.

In the accompanying drawings, Figures 1, 2, and 3 illustrate in ageneral manner the new arrangement serving for reversing the engine.Figs. 4, 5, and 6 show the arrangement in the case of the closing orabutment cylinders of the engine being arranged on common shafts. Fig. 7is a modification of this arrangement. Figs. 8,9, and 10 representacomplementary arrangement by which the engine constitutes a polyphasemotor in order to be readily started in either direction by the mereshifting of the valve. Figs. 11 and 12 are sectional views showing theports, valves, and conduits of the high and low pressure cylinders,respectively, of Figs. 1, 2, and 3. Fig. 13 isa sectional view inlinewith the axis of rotation of the motor. Fig. 14

shows the valve-operating mechanism. 1 Figs. 15, 16, and 17 show thearrangement of ports,

Serial No. 111.538- (No model.)

conduits, valves, and valve-operating mechanism shownin Figs. 4, 5, and6. Figs. 18 and reference to Figs. 1, 2, and 3, ll, 12, 13, and

14. Fig. 2 represents in section the highpressure chamber, and Fig. 3the low-pressure chamber, the short closing cylinders or o bturators ofthe one chamber having intermediate positions with regard to the closingcylinders of the other chamber, as shown in Fig. 1. The openings of thehigh-pressure and low-pressure chambers communicate with one another,the port Z being connected with L, by the channel 2', 1,, Z, with L bychannel t', 1,, Z, with L, by a similar channel, (not shown,) Z with L,by t, I, Z, with L, by t", I,, and Z with L by a similar channel. (Notshown.) Ports Zcan, moreover, be brought into connection with theadmission-conduits a and ports L with the exhaust-conduits e. Suitablevalves, cocks, or other similar devices being provided in these channelsvarious combinations may be obtained. For instance, by means of therotary valves R,

"R, R, one can put in communication either (1) Z Z, Z with theiradmission openings; (2) Z, Z, Z,, respectively,with L L, L,; (3) L L, L,with the exhaust-conduits e. In this case, which is shown in Figs. 5,11, 12, and 14, the engine will turn in clockwise direction. If,however, the following connections are made by the shifting of lever Pto P, (1) Z, Z Z, with the admission; (2) Z Z Z with L L, L,,respectively; (3) L, L, L with the'exhaust, the engine will turn in theopposite direction-t. e., in counter-clockwise direction. It will beeasily understood that the change of direction is obtained by causingeach high-pressure compartment to work with one or the other of the twoadjacent low pressure compartmentsviz., a (HP) with 6' or 6 (BP), 6 (HP)with 8 or (BP), 7/ (HP) with d or 6 (BP).

. It is understood that the described mode of altering the direction maybe applied to any rotary engine comprising high-pressure andlow-pressure compartments.

The change of direction can be obtained in a very simple manner also incases where tion 2, Figs. 5, 6, 15, and 16, the steam enters throughadmission -conduit 0., valve r, and port A and escapes from thehigh-pressure compartment through the port E, valve r, and conduit '6then enters the medium-pressure division y through the port 0, escapesat B, passing through valve 1", and passes by conduit E to thelow-pressure division z, entering the same through the inlet-opening F,and finally escapes through exhaust-opening D. Under these conditionsthe engine rotates in the clockwise direction. If, however, the steam isadmitted to the high-pressure compartment by a pipe a' through valve 1"and port IE, it escapes through A, valve 1', passing through conduit2",, Figs. 6 and 16, and port B into the middle-pressure compartment 2from which it escapes at through valve 1' to pass through conduit 1'into the low-pressure compartment 2:, from which it escapes finally atF. It, for example, the pipes admitting live steam are connected to Aand E, while exhaust-pipes lead from F and D, it will be sufficient tohave valves, cocks, or slides, such as r 1", arranged to cause the steamto travel in the one or the other of the above-indicated ways by theshifting of leverP into position P, Fig. 17. It is clear that thisarrangement is only a modification of that previously described withreference to Figs. 1, 2, and 3.

The different steam-conduits could be also arranged asjshown in Figs. 18and 19 at Imn. In this modification when the engine is to turn in theclockwise direction, Fig. 18', the steam admitted to compartment 1ofdivisionwpasses through conduit n into compartment 3 of division y,from which it escapes through con duit m into compartment 2 of division2', from which it escapes into the exhaust. To obtain rotation in theopposite direction, Fig. 19, the

suffice to simply reverse the direction of the passage of the motivefluid with the parts in such relative position as might theoreticallyserve to reverse the motor. It is necessary or desirable that the motorbe able to start 'kinds of dotted lines.

itself whatever the position of it s parts, as well as to reverse itsmotion by simply shifting the position of the valves and without theassistance of extraneous means or power. This can onlybe realized bysecuring a constantly-applied driving power in all of the angularpositions of the motor-axle. In a non-reversible'engine the movement isregulated by a "fly-wheel; but in a reversible engine to obtain aregular movement the driving power must be applied as constantly aspossible. To obtain this regular movement, a motor such as herein setforth is made to operate in the following manner: The improved enginecan be converted into a poly phase motor by means of a specialarrangement. The term polyphase motor is taken from the electricpolyphase motors and is intended to indicate that the action in thedifferent compartments arranged about the same shaft begins at differenttimes. Thus in the polyphase rotary engine the corresponding phases forone revolution will in the various compartments begin under difierentangular positions of the motor-shaft, and the angles between thoseinitial working positions of each compartment constitutes what is calledthe phase angle in electric motors. In comparison with electric motors acomplete working period in one compartment or group of compartments, comprising admission, expansion, or compression and exhaust, willconstitute a period. Fig. 8 shows for one revolution the diagrams ofwork of a polyphase motor having triple expansion, with four periods perrevolution in each chamber, in their relative positions. As may be seenfrom Fig. 8, the working diagram of each chamber is composed of fourperiods, which for each chamber are indicated by different An engineworking according to the diagram shown would be a rotary three-phaseengine, the resulting diagram being represented by Fig. 9. Theadvantages obtainable by the improved polyphase rotary engine will beeasily understood from Figs. 8 and 9: first, there is no deadpoint;second, the engine can run readily either forward or backward; third, inthe motors the torsional moment is as constant as in a polyphase dynamo,which are now considered asbest adapted for the transmission of energy.Experiments made with the improved rotary engines have shown the averagetorsional moment of an ordinary engine of the type in "question to beequal to .560 of the maximum moment, while a threephase engine of thesame type had an aver-.

age moment equaling 0.873of the maximum moment. fore practicallyinstantaneous.

I torsional moment being only to a small degree variable there is noneed to provide a special mass to maintain the movement, andtherefore'the weight of the motor may be reduced to a'minimum, whichrenders the improved system particularly applicable for every kind ofautomobile vehicle and for the propulsion of aerostats.

Having now defined the nature of the improvement which I term polyphaserotary engine, the conditions observed for obtaining the advantagesmentioned are as follows: The rotary engine may be of any desired kind,with one or more shafts, and may be actuated by gas, steam, fluid,combustible powder, or the like and may be used either as a motor or asa pump or as a combined motor and pump. The only condition which must beobserved is that the total number of the compartments and the'number ofperiods of action in each compartment during one revolution must nothave one of them for the greatest common measure or divisor. Forinstance, supposing a rotary motor comprising three Working compartmentsand four pistons or vanes, it will be seen that of the two numbers 3 and4, none beingthe greatest common divisor of the other, the workingperiods in each compartment donot coincide, but vary with regard tooneanother. The four pistons acting successively in each of the threecompartments, four working periods will take only after the shaft hasturned one hundred and twenty degrees and two hundred and .forty degreesfrom the position in which the piston had begun to Work in thecompartment a.

relatively to the working diagram of compartment a to the extent of onehundred and twenty degrees and two hundred and forty degrees,respectively. Therewill be therefore three series, each consisting offour periods and shifted one relatively to the other by one hundred andtwenty degrees- -21 e., twelve periods spaced with regard to each otherto the extent of one-twelfth of one revolution-i. e., thirty degrees.This exampleis represented by Figs. 1 and 2. In the examples cited, 3and 4:a'reptll1l6llllmbets, and all periods of the differentcompartments are shifted relatively to each other. In case the two numbers were 6 and S the greatest common divisor would be 2. engine wouldhave eighty-four periods; but

as the parts consisting of threecompartments or four pistons are equalto one another and to one-half the circumference the phases in twocompartments diametrically opposite will be the same.

fourth of the peripheryt'. (2., fifteen degrees. The motor is thereforeboth balanced and polyphased. Generally speaking, if G be the number ofthe compartments and P the number of working periods in each compartmentduring one revolution, the total number of periods in one revolutionwill be G The working diagrams of the corn-' partments /J and 7 aretherefore shifted The forty-eight periods will therefore coincide inpairs, whereby the. angle of phase is reduced to one twentytimes P. Ifnow D be the greatest common" divisor of G and P, the number ofdifferent periods during one revolution of the resulting diagramrepresenting the total work in the com partments will be G times Pdivided by D. The number D defines the balance of the machine andindicates that the same phase occurs at such points of the peripherywhich correspond with the corners of a regular polygon, the number ofsides of which is In the foregoing description the compartments weresupposed to be equal and the pistons arranged at equal distances apart.It is obvious, however, that compartments of different lengths andarranged irregularly round the periphery, as Well as irregularlyarranged pistons, could be used without departing from the spirit of theinvention.

the casing and provided with grooves engaging said pistons, therebydividing each chamber into compartments, the number of saidcompartmentsand pistons in each chamber having no common divisor equalto eithernumber; inlet andoutlet ports for each compartment, conduitsfor connecting the sev eral compartments of one chamber with those ofanother chamber, and reversing-valve mechanism for reversing the orderof admis sion and exhaust.

2. In a rotary engine, in combination, a casing; a plurality of chambersin said casing, constituting high and low pressure chambers;

a re voluble shaft passing through each cham ber; pistons located onsaid shaft; abutments located at suitable angular distances about,

the casing and provided with grooves engaging said pistons, therebydividing each chamber into compartments, the abutments of one chamberbeing angularly displaced with respect to those of the next; inlet andoutlet portsfor each compartment; conduits for connecting thehigh-pressure compartments of one chamber with the low-pressurecompartments of the next chamber and reversingvalve mechanism forreversing the order of admission and exhaust.

3. In a rotary engine, in combination, acasing forming a chamber; ashaft passing therethrough; pistons located on said shaft; abutmentslocated at suitable angular distances about the casing and provided withgrooves engaging said pistons, thereby dividing the chamber intocompartments, the number of said compartments and pistons having nocommon divisor equal to either number; inlet and outlet ports for eachcompartment; and reversing-valve mechanism for reversing the order ofadmission and exhaust.

4. In a rotary engine or analogous apparatus, ahigh-pressure chamber andalow-pressure chamber each divided into a plurality of and a valve orlike means adapted according to its position to connect each of saidlastmentioned parts either to one of the conduits leading from thehigh-pressu re chamber or to an exhaust passage or opening.

In testimony whereof I have signed this specification in the presence oftwo subscrib- 2o ing witnesses.

LOUIS JUIIES JEAN-BAPTISTE LE ROND.

Witnesses:

EMILE LEDRET, EDWARD P. MAOLEAN.

